


Barking Up the Wrong Tree

by PandaPaladin



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AU where Krypto was in the pod with Clark, F/F, Fluff, One Shot, and now he’s Kara’s wingdog, it’s as fluffy as Streaky’s fur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 20:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20823209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaPaladin/pseuds/PandaPaladin
Summary: For as long as she could remember, Kara always wanted a dog. So when Clark came knocking on her door to babysit his dog for a while, she gladly accepted. He just forgot to mention that Krypto was more than just a handful— and apparently the world’s most frustrating wingman.Halfway across National City, Lena wrapped a blanket around an orange tabby cat with the powers of a Kryptonian.





	Barking Up the Wrong Tree

**Author's Note:**

> The angel on my shoulder said to make a dog fic and the devil on the other side said KITTY FIC so I did both

The last thing Kara wanted to wake up to was a slobbering tongue running over the left side of her face. Well— in very specific certain circumstances, _ maybe. _

She groaned, eyes still squeezed shut, and turned over on her bed. She grabbed around to find the pillow she always hugged at night, and pushed it over her head to force the assailant to stop licking her. Whoever or whatever that was. 

There was a deep chuckle behind her, and then the unmistakable sound of a certain cousin touching down on her linoleum with red Kansas boots. The breeze made her arm hairs stand up with goosebumps. 

Fully awake now, Kara threw her blanket off herself and sat up. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and blinked a couple times, throwing her glasses onto her face out of habit. 

“You should really start closing your window at night,” Clark chastised, but there was a bare hint of a smile on his face. He crossed his arms and added, “You could get sick.”

“So nice of you to care about me, your nearly invincible cousin,” she said sardonically, and ran a hand over her hair to flatten it. There was a whine beside her, and her bed bounced up and down with the weight of someone new. When she felt the drying slobber on her face, Kara finally had the idea to turn her head to look at her culprit. 

Her culprit turned out to be a white dog, a collar on his neck with the shiny ‘S’ symbol that matched Clark’s suit in front of her. He even had a tiny cape to go along, and she would have laughed if the entire situation wasn’t baffling to her.

“You… brought Krypto?” she said hesitantly. She ran her fingers over Krypto’s fur, and the dog barked and wagged his tail at the attention. And then she grinned, turning her body to start tickling him over the spots where he was most vulnerable. “You never bring Krypto to National City! Look at him! He’s so big— _ Rao, _Kal, look at him, he’s such a good boy, aren’t you, Krypto? He’s such a good boy.” 

Clark laughed with his entire chest, eyes twinkling at the sight of his beloved dog and cousin rough-housing on a fluffy mattress. He stopped them with a whistle, Krypto’s ears pointing at attention and his entire body frozen for a command. 

“Krypto, sit,” he said, and Krypto shook himself off and jumped off Kara’s bed to sit beside Clark’s shiny red boot.

Kara almost complained. She bit it back, and said, “What are you doing here? What’s _ Krypto _doing here? Is Lois in trouble? Are you?”

“What, I can’t visit my favorite cousin from time to time now?” he said, feigning hurt. Kara made a face, and he chuckled. “I actually came here to ask for a favor.”

“I’m always here for you, Kal, you know that,” she said gently, and scooted over on her bed to let her cousin sit down. He obeyed, letting his broad shoulders relax in order to sit beside her. The bed dipped slightly over his weight, and Kara pulled the blanket over her duck pajamas subconsciously. 

“I know. And I hate asking for favors, but this is a big one,” he started, his eyes never leaving hers. He put his hands over the ones on her lap, squeezing it tightly. “I was going to ask Bruce if he could do it. Maybe even leave Krypto with Jimmy— but Rao knows he’s a feisty one. And he has—”

“Superpowers, I know,” Kara interrupted. She smiled encouragingly at him. She knew exactly where he was going, and even though it was five in the morning and she had to get to work in two hours, she already knew her answer was a big fat yes. “Do you want me to take care of him?”

Clark’s shoulders slumped. He sighed through his mouth, running his hands over his face and Kara cackled over his grandpa antics. He gave her a dark look, but his twitching lips betrayed his good-natured teasing. On the floor, Krypto was chasing his tail so fast that he was nothing but a red and white blur.

Clark wearily waved a hand over in his dog’s direction. “I love the guy, don’t get me wrong,” he said, resting the back of his head on Kara’s headboard, “but I want to spend my anniversary with Lois. Alone. And he’d practically tear the entire city down without somebody watching him.”

“And the only one who could handle him is a Super, huh?” Kara jostled his shoulder with hers. 

“Rao, you have no idea.” He groaned, and Kara bit back another snort. 

“How long do you need me to watch him?”

Clark considered it for a second. “I was thinking about going away for three weeks. But I know even a week with him could get hectic, so I’m thinking—”

“No. No, absolutely not,” Kara declared. She twisted her hip to look at him. “You need a vacation. Desperately. And I wanna give you one. So if you leave him with me for three weeks, I _ swear _it won’t be any problem.”

Clark still looked slightly uneasy. “Are you sure, Kara? He’s not your average dog.”

“And I’m not your average gal.” She beamed at him. Sure, she had bed hair and she was still in her bright pajamas, but she made a point. Clark knew it, depending from the smile he gave her.

He stood up and got off her bed and Kara mirrored him, already fluffing up her pillow to fix it up. Krypto was still chasing his tail, and Clark halted him by grabbing blindly in the white blur to find the scruff of his collar. Krypto barked and stuck out his tongue at his friend.

“Krypto, you’ll be staying with Kara,” Clark told him. He was only a toddler when he named the dog, and Kara was only glad he never got the chance to name him Doggy or Kitty.

Despite it all, and despite only ever spending a couple hours with Krypto at most, the dog was the most lovable furry guy she ever got to meet besides her departed Streaky.

Clark gave her a set of rules, sitting her down while she scratched Krypto behind the ear. Don’t feed him too much, don’t feed him too little, tuck his cape back in after missions, don’t let him eat the cape— all the basics of Super Dog Sitting.

Before Clark could leave her apartment like a speeding bullet, she stopped him. “Are you making me take care of him because you still think I’m lonely?” she asked, half serious and only half prodding her cousin.

Clark gave her a guilty smile. 

Kara gaped at him. “I am _ not _lonely!” she argued. “I have Alex! I have friends!”

“Kara, I’m not saying you need someone in order to make you happy,” he explained, and his goofy grin was still plastered on his face. Kara wanted to knock him out— and she technically could. She contemplated it for a second. “But I think taking care of him could help you too.”

“Help me?” Kara scrunched her brow.

“There’s no better pickup line than ‘hey Lena, do you wanna pet my dog?’,” he said with complete seriousness.

“I mean—” Her brain stopped functioning. She gawked, again. “Did you say _ Lena_?”

“I love you, Kara, take care of each other, go to bed earlier!” Clark said quickly, then turned to face his dog, who was gnawing on the corner of Kara’s desk. “I’ll see you soon, buddy.” And then he was nothing but a blue blur in the sky. 

She huffed. Pivoting on a heel, she marched over to her kitchen to make Krypto a well-needed glob of meat. But once she pulled out a can and turned around, Krypto yawned with his large stomach jutting out from underneath him.

He gnawed through Kara’s seven tupperwares and ate everything inside, plastic containers and leftovers and all.

“Better you than the turtles, I guess,” she muttered, and heated up the can with her heat vision for her to eat herself.

Then Krypto barked loudly, and she looked up from her new steaming can of tuna. He was staring at a picture on Kara’s fridge. 

“Oh, her?” she said, and pointed at it. He barked again. “That’s my best friend, Lena. We could go surprise her later if you want. Her building’s right across the national park.” _ Not that I’m making excuses to go see her or anything. _

When he barked again, he wagged his tail in excitement. Kara wondered if she could use his vibrating tail as a makeshift feather duster. 

When Krypto stood up, his tail still wagging super fast, he knocked over an expensive vase she got for her birthday. He didn’t seem to mind nor care, and instead bounced over to Lena’s picture on the fridge and put his paw over it. 

When he licked the side of picture-Lena’s face, Kara shooed him away with a vein sticking out of her neck. 

“Hey, hey!” she ordered, raising her knee to get him to come down from the fridge, “That’s _ my _girl, get your own!”

She missed the subtle glint of mischief that passed through Krypto’s eyes at her words. 

* * *

Lena rubbed the space in between her eyebrows with her thumb’s knuckle. She sighed, biting down on the end of her pen, and typed more furiously on a mindless spreadsheet.

She was wearing her itchy lab coat, L-Corp’s symbol stitched over the breast pocket. It was already two in the morning, and she forced all of her staff to go home an hour ago. Jess reminded her to get home earlier than she did the day before, but she waved her assistant off with a gloved hand. 

Getting sleep was less important than the work she’s doing now. 

Hell, she was _ so _close to figuring it out too. Green kryptonite was in shards under her microscope, and she carefully added catalysts to the particles with a steady hand. She held her breath and watched for a full thirty seconds, before the green turned into a poor yellow. The anions weren’t binding to the molecules. 

  
Lena sighed, not surprised but disappointed anyway. She put down her pipette and rubbed at her eyes, turning back to her computer to write down her findings. 

Her eyes felt like they had a heartbeat of their own as she stared a hole into her screen. They pulsed heavily, and she forced herself not to blink order to keep her concentration. Behind her, the quiet noises of the lab soothed her enough to carry on. The hissing of Bunsen burners and the bubbling of acids always felt more like home than an empty alabaster apartment. 

Lena tapped the tip of her stylus on her tooth. She made a correction on a formula on another sheet, then continued to fix the domino effect it made. _ Add the power of seven, remove the butane, balance the equation, lunch with Kara tomorrow, make her eat more kale— _

Kale. She was supposed to add more carbon. 

Like a light bulb flicked brightly over her head, Lena furiously scribbled on her touch screen, her brow knitted together as worked her way through a logical question. A question, now that she was thinking about it and hitting her forehead for, that was solvable by a child in fifth grade science class. 

And then she ran back and forth between the metal tables of her lab, unable to call for help by the rest of her scientific team. But that was okay, because Lena’s veins were thrumming with the rush of excitement. She was even _ bouncing _on the balls of her feet as she waited for her burner to seep the chemicals through its tubes, holding her pipette like a menacing butcher ready for harvest. 

And then when her pipette was finally syringed with seven milliliters of a self-made liquid, she quickly strode over to the green kryptonite. 

_ This is it, _ she chanted to herself, optimistic, but never too optimistic. _ I can help Kara. I can _ save _ Kara. _

Her best friend in question was a near-flying god disguised in a red cape— except with the weakness of a mineral that made its way to Earth. And Kara had no problem sharing to her the horrors of kryptonite, how a singular thumb-sized chunk of the thing could make her feel like her eyeballs were exploding from the very back of her head. How she knew that even though there was no way she could completely eradicate the effects of kryptonite, she’d always rather choose to face it every day than let someone she never met get hurt. 

But with a two billion dollar lab and a team of ivy league graduates from Lena’s beck and call, she could surely try and help. And besides— she was smart enough to make synthetic kryptonite in case of a sundown operation (and lord, that hurt to even think about). 

It wasn’t as if she had Lex’s ego either. She knew no matter how smart she was, she couldn’t find a way to _ completely _ reverse its effect on Kryptonians. But whenever she saw Kara fall to her knees in front of a glowing gem, or hold her head and scream as if it something was living inside of her head to make her feel that way, Lena just had to _ try— _and she already proved her hypothesis a long time ago that she could make kryptonite feel less painful. 

The last thing she ever wanted was to see Kara in that kind of pain again. So she bit down on her tongue so hard that it nearly brought tears to her eyes, and squeezed exactly four drops of liquid onto a petri dish of grounded kryptonite. 

And she held her breath, a vein pounding hard in her neck. 

The petri dish simmered. It brought up a dark cloud of steam into the sky, until it turned into a brilliant shade of cobalt blue. Lena couldn’t help but think that it was nearly the same shade as Kara’s eyes, only rendered murky from the darkness of her laboratory. 

The vein in her neck pounded harder, feeling more like a nail digging into her skin, when underneath the microscope, the molecules weren’t rejecting the bond. 

In exactly twenty seconds, she’ll be holding the cure to her best friend’s misgivings. In thirty, she’ll call Kara from the necklace she gave her, where the House of El’s coat of arms disguised itself as an emergency beacon. And in fifty seconds, Kara will realize that Lena did this for _ her, _and only for her, because it’s always been for her. 

Like something blew down her house of cards and her neat rows of polished dominos, her cure was suddenly ripped from her grasp. Each molecule stopped vibrating one by one, turning back into a sickly green that made up the gem’s glow. 

Lena paused. 

She gulped the hard lump in her throat, her gloved hand shaking over the handle of the microscope. She slid out the petri dish and stared at it, up close to her face (a practice that was entirely dangerous, but one she couldn’t give a shit to care), and swallowed again.

A guttural cry of frustration ripped through her throat. She marched over to one of the only windows of her lab, shutting off its opaque covering with a quick bark of an order to a listening AI and opened it with a snap of her wrist. As if she was possessed by something dark and reckless inside of her, Lena threw the dish out of the window into a back alley.

When she pivoted on her heel, hands working on removing her sweaty gloves, Lena’s anger dissipated like the steam from the petri dish. 

She bit down on her lower lip and turned back around, nearly drawing blood as she rested her waist on the window sill and bent over to find the glassware. 

Several things happened all at once. Lena caught the eye of thin orange cat — a stray, most likely — and then snapped her eyes over to the green oozing over its body. Before she could swipe the cat up and take it into holding, the green soaked itself into the cat’s body and disappeared. There was a loud mewl, as if the cat was finally feeling the kryptonite, and it stretched its body into a long arch, facing Lena with wild eyes. 

There was a high-pitched _ bang, _and a blinding show of blue. Lena squeezed her eyes shut, backing away from the window with the inside of her elbow shielding herself from the burns of the light.

Behind her eyelids, things were starting to dim down. She moved her elbow away from her face slowly, blinking away the remnants of purple dots dancing in her vision, and squinted. 

In front of her was the same cat, standing there with its haunches still up in apprehension. But there was something… distinctive about how the stray carried itself. It looked stronger, ribs no longer pressed against fur, and more prominent yellow lines brushed over autumn orange fur. 

“Hey,” Lena cooed, hands out in front of her and moving slowly towards the window. The cat looked up at her and hissed lowly, backing a paw away. “It’s— it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The cat hissed again. Lena stopped in her footsteps, lowering her hands and looking away from the cat for a couple breaths in and out. When she looked back, the cat was sitting down, looking at her with a mild look of curiosity. It wasn’t hissing or raising its haunches anymore, and for that, Lena was glad. She breathed out slowly. 

When she took another step forward, the cat didn’t react. “Here, kitty,” she crooned, making small cooing noises under her breath. She didn’t really know if that tactic even worked— all that mattered that it was the only tactic she knew, and it was one worth trying. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

The orange cat looked like it was laughing at her. It picked itself up easily, striding over to Lena with a grace that surprised her. It looked somewhat familiar, but also absurd, to see this cat hold its chin high and walk over like a championship dog. 

Lena was still a couple feet away from the window. She took a step forward to help the cat up, but the problem was fixed for her. It bounced over the window with incredible ease, and then stopped right in front of Lena.

Sure, cats could jump. She wasn’t that naive. But did the cat just _ floated _over to her?

She crouched down in front of it, holding out a hand. Steadily, but still with apprehension, the cat bumped its head on her knuckles. 

Lena smiled softly to herself. She ran a careful hand over its head, making soothing noises in the back of her throat. There was a calmness that silenced her thoughts when she ran a hand through silky fur. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said to the cat. 

It purred in agreement.

Outside, a dog barked. The cat reacted fast, hissing and turning its head so fast and hard that it knocked Lena’s hand away with a force that almost bent her wrist ninety degrees. Its fur stood on end. 

Then there was another hiss. Something low, quietly humming, before she realized that the cat’s eyes were _ steaming— _and glowing. 

The cat she picked off the street blasted a heavy shot of heat vision into the side of her window sill.

When the cat turned back to look at her, it padded back underneath her hand and purred. 

“I’ll go and try to find some Dayquil,” she muttered under her breath.

* * *

A loud beeping noise woke Kara up from her dreamless sleep. She grabbed the side of her face with a lazy hand, blinking into the darkness of her room. Krypto whined beside her, shifting and crying over the high-pitched noise that amplified in their ears. 

She checked her phone— a distress call from Lena. 

Adrenaline and fear coursed through her blood. Without another heartbeat to wait, she changed out in a flash and torpedoed out of her room, nearly shattering her closed window until she took another split second to open it for herself. 

_ Damn it, Kal. Stop closing my window. _

She got to the location of the call. It was coming from her lab— not the private one she kept in her basement, but the one on the ground floor she used with her R&D team. It made her throat close up. 

Kara had no regrets busting down the iron door. Lena gave her access to the lab a long time ago, and her system had Kara’s retinal scans, hand prints, and everything she ever needed to come in. But doing so took two more seconds to do— and she didn’t have two more seconds to waste if it came to Lena. It didn’t matter if it meant her life or coming late to a brunch date.

“Lena!” she yelled. Her eyes darted around the laboratory. Everything seemed to be in pristine condition. “Lena, are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” called Lena’s voice. Kara’s anxiety disappeared like blowing on sand. “I’m in here.”

Slumping her shoulders and huffing a couple breaths, Kara followed the sound of her best friend’s voice. She could pick up something weird as well— something low, and almost glottal, but the pounding in her ears prevented her from using her super hearing to its full extent. 

When she rounded the corner and peered into one of the break rooms of Lena’s lab, the sight she saw was so homey and intimate that she felt as if she was trespassing in Lena’s summer cottage, not a stripped-down clean laboratory. 

She was lying down on a spare bed, on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed, her hair up in a messy bun and wearing a loose band t-shirt that Kara was certain was from the lost and found bin. She was humming softly under her breath, petting a cat that purred underneath her chin and nuzzled nicely on her chest with pawing motions. Lena was stroking her hand over its orange coat, her other hand settled on its hind.There was a yellow-ish streak along the side of its fur. 

Kara’s throat welled up again. She tried her best to gulp down the apple-sized lodge, and leaned herself against the door frame. All she could think about was seeing Lena look like this everyday for the rest of her life. So calm, and happy, and serene— she almost wanted to scoop Lena up and take her away from the rest of the world for the rest of their lives. 

She shook off the thought and scolded herself like a bad dog. Things had to come first, and making sure Lena was okay was one of them.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, and it felt stupid the moment it rolled off her tongue. So she corrected herself and said, “Did something… happen?”

Lena looked like she was biting down on her tongue. Her hand slowed on the cat, but she never stopped petting it. “I… adopted a cat.”

Kara fought with herself. Was she supposed to be exasperated, and tell Lena that the distress call embedded in her necklace was for _ distress?_ Or was she supposed to be happy about it? She settled on a mix of both. “That’s— that’s great, Lena!” she chirped, beaming at her friend. She pushed herself off the frame with a shoulder, smile wavering slightly. “But you know you could’ve just called me, right?”

“I did.” Lena chuckled to herself, adjusting her back to face Kara more prominently. The cat on her chest didn’t move. Kara realized that the orange tabby cat had the tautest muscles she ever saw on something so small and supposedly domestic. She couldn’t help but wonder where Lena actually got it in the first place. “I kept texting you and calling you from your phone, but there wasn't any answer. So I used the distress signal.”

Kara frowned. “I swear I’m not singling you out, but a cat really couldn’t wait until morning?” She didn’t say it out loud, but the fact that Lena was so excited to tell her that she adopted a cat in the middle of the night was sort of adorable.

“Are you kidding?” Lena said in disbelief. She hefted the cat up underneath the armpits and squished the sleepy furry face against the side of her face. “You didn’t want me to tell you, Miss I’ll-Stop-Flying-To-Pet-A-Cat-On-The-Street, that I adopted the most lovable kitty in the entire world? Look at this guy. He’s the softest cat I’ve ever _ met._”

Okay, it was ten different kinds of adorable. 

Feigning irritation, Kara threw her arms up and said, “Yes? It’s not like I couldn’t get to your house in two seconds the moment I woke up.”

“And miss out on petting Streaky?” Lena teased.

“Well, I—” All noise died in Kara’s throat. She blinked. Then blinked again. Lena was still looking at her with a warm smile, but Kara’s silence was making it slowly drop. 

“Sorry,” Lena blurted out. Streaky yawned wide and nuzzled himself under her chin. “I should’ve— I’m an idiot. I should’ve asked you if it was okay before I went ahead and bought four different collars with ‘Streaky’ engraved on them.”

“Did you really name him after my cat?” she said, her voice a lot quieter than it was before. 

Lena gave her a small smile. It was timid, as if she was waiting for Kara to get upset. “Is that okay?” she asked, and the smallness in her voice made her concern much more clearer. “It was the first name that popped into my head when I was filling out adoption papers. Because I was thinking about you— your old cat,” she said, and her last words were rushed out of her mouth, rolling into something nearly natural. 

Kara exhaled slowly. She knew that was her cue to say something, anything. To say that it was more than okay, that it was a big honor that Lena would even _ consider _naming her cat for her. She even wanted to say that it was so sweet that it nearly topped the time Lena commissioned a giant steel statue in her name. 

But then something broke into the lab with a bang and a thud, and that something knocked itself against her left shin. Her knee locked in and she had to slam her hands on a nearby table to steady herself. There were only a few things in this world that could topple her like that. 

“Krypto!” she huffed, and turned her head to see the dog panting and looking at her expectantly. “Heel, boy! Heel! _ Rao, _I swear—”

“Krypto?” Lena repeated. She sat up on the bed, Streaky gathered in her arms and napping in her lap. “Krypto, like Superman’s dog? No offense to your cousin, I appreciate everything he’s done, but naming his dog Krypto is virtually the same thing as calling my cat Eartho.”

Kara tried not to make a face. “Yeah, he was four when he got Krypto. I was _ begging _him to change his name, but even offering Kal a giant tub of his favorite dessert wouldn’t change his mind.”

Lena laughed. She kept petting Streaky in her lap, and the cat only seemed to melt under her hand. An unfamiliar twang went through Kara.

“Is there a specific reason to why Krypto’s looking at you like you’re the juiciest steak he’s ever seen?” Lena mused. 

Kara grinned at her. Rubbing the side of her arm, she explained, “My cousin’s going on a three week break with his wife. I offered to take care of Krypto for him while he’s gone.”

Krypto barked a lot louder than he intended, because the nearest Erlenmeyer flask shattered into a thousand pieces. Lena flinched, holding up her arm to her face to defend herself from the glass. Kara was milliseconds away from speeding to her to use her back as a shield, but something else came to Lena’s defense.

Streaky was up and about the moment the glass shattered, as if he was never peacefully snoring on her lap in the first place. He was up in the sky in front of Lena, using the side of his entire body to defend her face from the onslaught. Shards bounced off his fur to ricochet onto the ground.

When it was all over, he mewled and licked his paw, before settling back into Lena’s lap with a purr. And then he was out like a light.

“Oh.” Kara blinked. “That’s why.”

“I don’t have any clue on how to take care of a super cat. It’s not like I could order a book on it,” Lena said, a slight edge of exasperation to her tone. She was back to petting Streaky. “So… I was kind of hoping you’d have the answers.”

Kara pursed her lips. She put her hands on her hips and walked closer to Lena, her eyebrows pulling together in concentration. Krypto walked in between her legs, looking up at her with a panting tongue. “How did this happen?” she asked, baffled. “I don’t— at least I don’t _ think _there were cats on Krypton. And I’m one hundred percent sure no one in my family had them to put in a pod with me or Kal.”

“He’s not from Krypton,” Lena told her lowly, looking down at Streaky with a soft smile. “I was trying to perfect the cure for you. The kryptonite. But then I got mad and reckless and I threw it out the window and— God, that wasn’t my proudest moment. It got on Streaky.”

  
The knit in Kara’s brow pulled tighter. “Did you—?”

“Of course.” Lena smiled, albeit rigidly, at her. “He has the same exact powers as a Kryptonian. There’s no negative side effects.”

“Wow,” she said breathlessly. “Wow. That’s— Lena. That’s incredible!”

“It was an accident,” Lena said offhandedly. 

“Still,” she said bluntly. She came a little closer to Lena. “You are the most amazing, incredible woman I’ve ever met, you know that? You’re so— wow. I don’t think anyone was expecting this but now I guess National City has a… a…”

“Streaky the Supercat,” Lena supplied for her, and she laughed genially with Kara. “And for a while, National City also has Krypto the Superdog.”

“Your average burglar's gotta watch out now, huh?” Kara teased. 

“Oh, they always had,” Lena drawled. She held Kara’s eyes steadily. “Everyone feels safe with you.”

Kara tilted her head. Beside her, Krypto copied her movements. “Me or Supergirl?”

Lena couldn’t help but smile. She glanced down at her dog, then back to Kara. “You two look like twins,” she teased, and laughed when Kara wrinkled her nose. “And both, Kara. After all, you’re the same person.”

“You know what I meant,” she grumbled. And then she dropped her voice, dropping her head a little lower to meet Lena’s eyes, and crossed her arms. “Do you?” she said softly. 

“Do I…?”

“Feel safe with me.” Kara curled her lip, huffing out a breath and looking away from Lena’s intense look. “I mean, of course you do. I know you do. But I know sometimes I could scare you when I do things like crush Winn’s phone in my hand, and I _ know _that because I saw the look you gave me before looking away, so I—”

Krypto left from in between her legs. There was a quick jab to the back of her knee, and then Kara crumpled from the force. She held out her arms in a panic, completely unaware of the situation. A yelp bubbled from her throat.

Her hands managed to grip the top of the bunk bed, crushing the painted metal under her knuckles. Her nose was nearly touching Lena’s, and the breath was knocked out of her chest. She never noticed the honey flecks in Lena’s eyes. 

“You were two inches away from crushing me,” Lena started, smiling gently at Kara, “but I didn’t flinch. You’re smart enough to inference the meaning of that.”

To make her point, Lena leaned forward to touch the tip of her nose with Kara’s. 

Kara smiled back, willing her lips to smile steadily. She also tried to keep the heat down from underneath her suit, and wiped her sweaty palms discreetly on her thighs. “You give really nice Eskimo kisses,” she commented, and Lena laughed. _ I bet you could give other really nice kisses too, _she thought, but banished it into the corner of her mind like it was a scandal (and really, it kinda was). 

When she craned her neck to see who the offending culprit was, Krypto stared back at her with an innocent tongue rolling out of his mouth and a good boy posture of sitting down on the floor. 

She looked back at Lena. Before she could say anything and move herself from their compromising situation, there was a low hiss.

It turned into a louder mewl of anger, and suddenly there was a cat attacking her face. 

Every news outlet in National City that morning pondered over Supergirl’s fading scar on her cheek. They didn’t seem to pay close attention to the new cat and dog by her side. Media was weird, and she knew better than to expect anything less. 

_ “Supergirl getting kinky in the Super Bedroom?” _ one tabloid said, pointing out that the scar could be mistaken for handsy fingernails. Lena Luthor nearly popped her suit buttons open from laughing so hard over dinner at Kara’s. 

“Don’t worry, darling,” Lena teased her, toasting her with sushi between chopsticks, “I know you’ll be more careful to hide evidence when _ we _do it.”

It was friendly, flirty best friend banter. No harm done. Kara guffawed at her comment with a face stuffed with sushi, and hid her reddening cheeks with a napkin. She turned around to face Krypto, whose dog eyebrows were raised high in question.

_ What are you looking at me for? _ his eyes seemed to ask. He tilted his head. _ Look at Lena. _

So she did. Face stuffed with sashimi and cheeks puffed out while trying to look down at her plate, Kara burst out laughing. Lena swallowed thickly, complaining about basic respect at the dinner table while Streaky walked over their plates, and it only made Kara laugh harder. 

Krypto seemed to grin wider at the two. He crossed his paws and sat down, laying his head for a well-rested nap after a fight with drones. Kara patted his head and praised him for his efforts. Krypto’s tail wagged silently.

* * *

“If you could change Krypto’s name to anything, what would it be?” Lena asked, her hands folded over her stomach. She was lying down, right beside Kara with their knees overlapping. On Lena’s giant mattress, they could each take a corner and still have enough space to fit seven plates of potstickers (she knew this because they actually did it once), but empty space was harrowing to the both of them. 

“I wouldn’t change it at all,” Kara retorted. “Dumb name, but he’s a smart dog. You get used to it.”

Lena groaned and turned over on her side, propping her face with an elbow. “You know this game isn’t fun if you won’t answer, right?” she accused, and Kara chuckled. She grabbed Kara’s nose and squeezed, emitting an offended _ “Hey!” _from her best friend as she wiggled Kara’s nose side to side. 

“Stop it!” Kara whined, and batted Lena’s hand away. She scowled, but the laugh that churned in her throat when Lena giggled betrayed her good nature. “Okay, okay, I’ll answer. You’re so mean.”

“Luthor genes,” Lena explained with a shrug.

Kara elbowed her gently in the stomach. It made Lena bark out a laugh in reflex, and the corners of Kara’s lips turned up in amusement. She lifted an arm and put it behind her head to rest on, chewing on her lip as she thought. Lena’s eyes instantly came up to her flexing bicep, watching it stretch out in order to accommodate the position Kara put it in. She snapped it back down to her friend’s face to avoid a questioning look.

“Farley,” she finally answered. “Just because it sounds nice. And also something Kal would name him because it sounds Kansas-sy.”

Lena didn’t even try to hide her snort. 

Kara looked over at her sharply, defending herself with a quirked eyebrow. “Oh, what, like you’d have a better name in mind?” she said sardonically, poking Lena again in the upper rib. 

“Actually, I do,” Lena said, and held her chin up higher. Kara seemed to find humor in that, because she started snickering. “Oisin.”

“Sounds accurate,” Kara said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Kara shrugged. The corners of her lips were twitching.

Lena scooted closer to her. “Oh come on, don’t give me that,” Lena scolded, and Kara looked up at her with a full blown grin. “See. What are you hiding from me?”

“‘fraid I can’t tell you, miss,” Kara told her simply.

“I’ll buy all of the potstickers in the world,” Lena negotiated. She held onto Kara’s elbow, the one at her side, and Kara looked down at it for a split second before holding her gaze with a twinkle in her blue eyes. Something white crossed the corner of her vision. 

“You told me that last time, so technically I already have all the potstickers in the world from you.” Kara stuck out her tongue.

“Double?” Lena said hopefully. 

Kara shook her head, amused. 

“How about pizza? Do you like pizza? Of course you like pizza, I would’ve thrown you out of the house if you didn’t.”

“You already promised me that too,” Kara said thoughtfully.

“How many things do I owe you?” Lena said in disbelief.

“Probably half of the food market, now that I think about it.”

“You’re lucky I’m rich.”

“I know.” Kara tilted her head at her. She seemed to draw closer to Lena, her elbow still in Lena’s grasp. Or maybe Lena was the one scooting closer. Or maybe both of them. “And I’m lucky that you love me.”

There was a beat of silence. In that same second, the heart that beat consistently in Lena’s chest stopped completely. The skin underneath Lena’s fingers felt hot, and she subconsciously eased her grip on Kara. 

“Sorry,” Kara said quickly. Her head dropped back onto the pillow. That was the same moment Lena realized that she lifted her head in the first place, to come closer to Lena. She felt the pit of her stomach drop. They were a literal inch away from leaning in and— _ stop it, _she scolded herself. 

“Don’t be,” Lena told her, and subtly cleared her throat. She leaned back and let go of Kara. “Not to outshine you or anything, but I think I’m the luckier one because _ you _ love _ me. _And you believe in everything I do.”

The soft smile Kara was giving her was making her weak in the knees, and she was lying down. The way Kara smiled was always so genuine— it reached her eyes and lit up her entire face, and it was infectious to everyone who saw it. Lena wasn’t immune. 

“You could hold a giant shard of kryptonite in your hand right now and shove it in my chest and I wouldn’t look at you any differently than I do now,” she said softly, and the raw honesty in her voice put a lump in Lena’s throat. 

“I don’t deserve a friend like you, Kara,” she said, and she hoped Kara would look past the croakiness in her voice. 

“Well, I’d beg to differ,” Kara said with a tilt of the head, “because you deserve the entire solar system. Sun and all.”

_ And if I told you that you were my solar system, would you still think I deserve that? _

But instead, Lena told her, “You know I’d do anything for you no matter what.” And that was the closest thing she ever got to telling Kara that her love was so unbearably unconditional. 

The smile Kara was giving her was gentler than the last. And much more intimate. “And I’d do the same thing for you,” she said, dipping her head lower. Her eyes stayed downcast until she added, “I’ve missed you. I almost flew into my roof when you asked me if I wanted to stay at your apartment today. Rao, it feels like centuries since we saw each other for longer than two minutes in an elevator or a stuffy hallway.”

The sudden shift and swing of their friendly banter to _ that _conversation made Lena want to bolt. She wasn’t really good with talking about emotions. Kara always made it easy for her to talk about heavier things than mindless work and debates on pizza toppings, but it never stopped being hard in the first place. And missing Kara— that was something that upset her more than she cared to admit. 

She opened her mouth to say something, maybe to switch their topic to something else, something kinder, and Kara did the same thing. A little noise came out of Kara’s mouth, a start of a new conversation, but she was cut off when Lena yelped.

Something heavy pounced on her shoulder blades. It didn’t hurt, but it made her push forward. Her forehead nearly collided with Kara’s (which, in comparison, was probably as strong as a reinforced steel wall), and her hand went out to steady herself. She grabbed a fistful of the duvet, and hands held her by the waist.

Basically, she was straddling her best friend. 

Working quickly and doing her best to compose herself and the heat steadily creeping over her face, Lena swung her leg away from Kara and scooched backwards, apologizing under her breath. Kara was doing the same thing, untangling herself and apologizing with a wild look in her eyes. 

There was a huffy snicker behind them. When they looked back, they were face to face with a canine that had a shiny red collar (Kara’s family’s emblem stayed hidden underneath until he was out to fight alongside her). He was guffawing in the best way a dog could, and Kara got up from her comfortable position to scold him with a finger.

“Krypto!” she accused, fading his laughter away with a withering glare. “You don’t jump on people like that! You could’ve broken her back, or hurt her—”

“Kara, he didn’t hurt me,” she said gently, because if there was one thing she wasn’t immune to, it was puppy dog eyes. Krypto’s saddened look and flattened ears reminded her of Kara, and it was that fact alone that made her jump to the canine’s defense. 

“He could’ve,” Kara huffed, and Lena tried not to point out that Kara was almost a mirror image of Krypto’s huffy look from last night when they refused to give him a third bone. 

“But he didn’t,” Lena said simply. She touched Kara’s arm softly, running her fingers over the skin, and Kara seemed to melt underneath her touch. Like Streaky. “Maybe he was just really excited, that’s all.”

Kara looked over at Krypto. The dog was back to looking like he was innocent, thumping his tail against the mattress and panting slightly. His bright eyes only held childish innocence. “Excited about what?” she asked, directing the question at the dog. 

He tilted his head and barked.

They glanced at each other. Lena shrugged. Before Kara could dispel the entire situation, Streaky came into the room. He looked calm before he spotted Krypto, then his hackles raised and he snarled directly at the dog. Krypto looked over. He kept his head tilted in question, and his tiny bark was raised the same way.

Streaky hissed. He came closer while Krypto stayed, and the entire situation was unnerving Lena. “Streaky, honey, what’s wrong?” she tried to ask, but her cat didn’t seem to pay her any attention. 

And then that was when she realized that Streaky wasn’t looking at Krypto, but at her hand resting on Kara’s arm.

She looked down at it. Then tentatively, removed her fingers away. Streaky calmed down. To test if it was a coincidence, Lena put her hand back, and the reaction was almost instantaneous. Streaky hissed until she took back. 

Kara looked between her and the cat. Then at the cat and back at her.

“You’re joking.” She gaped. “Cats love me! But now one’s— one’s _ jealous _of me? I thought the scratching thing was because he thought I was going to attack him first!”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Lena said with a laugh. “You’re a tough act to follow.”

“What do you mean?” Kara threw her arms up in exasperation. “I didn’t even do anything!”

“Oh, Kara.” She laughed harder when Streaky jumped onto the bed, then nipped the sleeve of her sweater and dragged her away from Kara to the edge of the bed. “I think you have competition.”

“I’m not losing to a cat,” Kara declared.

Lena started petting Streaky, scratching him lovingly under the chin. She didn’t look up to see Kara, but she could see Krypto guffawing at the situation from the corner of her eye. “How are you so sure about that?” she said, still looking down at her cat.

“I _ cannot _ believe this,” Kara said in complete disbelief. “You’re leaving me for a _ cat?” _

“He’s a lovely cat,” Lena argued, and used both hands to run her hands over his body. “Don’t listen to her, love. She’s just jealous of you.”

When Kara started pouting, she could see Krypto coming closer to her. She looked up to scratch him under the chin too, and his bright eyes told her something. A mischievous plan, if she could believe it. She didn’t know what, but if his fast thumping tail was an indication of anything, it was absolutely devious.

She dropped her gaze down to Streaky. His soulful eyes looked back at her.

_ I don’t think she’s good enough for you, _ he said to her. _ She should prove it. _

* * *

Kara scrolled through her phone lazily with a thumb. Her other hand cupped a glass of well-deserved wine, a tradition she made up for herself after a specifically horrid fight. Her shoulder was still healing from ramming against a gigantic alien entirely made out of rock. 

Krypto laid on her. The TV provided her with soothing background noise, playing back a show that had way too many fight choreographies to have any relevant plot. 

Her phone pinged with an incoming text from Lena. 

_ Do you need me to come over? _

She paused, looking at the text from her notification bar. She hovered over it with a thumb, trying to think of a response. But she was stumped. 

It was a thing they always did after she told Lena about her identity. She’d come over after a particularly hard battle, plug in some portable solar lamps, and they’d relax for a while until Kara was feeling like herself again. If Lena was feeling generous, she’d order a stack of potstickers and pizza to help her; if she wasn’t, she’d force Kara to eat an entire plate of salad, no ranch or anything to help it down. It always made her feel like a bunny, but seeing Lena’s satisfied smirk whenever she finished it was a reward in of itself.

She didn’t know why she was pausing. She loved hanging out with Lena, no matter what the situation was. This wasn’t any different.

Mildly frustrated, Kara put down her phone on the coffee table. She held Krypto’s face with her hands, scratching his chin and neck and ears. It made him squint happily, and she laughed lightly to herself.

Pressing her forehead against Krypto’s, she asked, mostly to herself, “What am I gonna do?”

Krypto looked back at her blankly.

She sighed through her nose, and she clarified, “What do you do if you think you’re in love with your best friend? Or at least… like her like that.”

_ Oh, I’m fairly certain it’s the former, _Krypto said with his eyes. He stuck out his tongue and panted.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she argued. She didn’t know why she was fighting with her cousin’s dog. Krypto couldn’t telepathically speak or do anything of the sort. And she had friends who could speak English. This just showed how utterly insane Kara was becoming, taking advice solely on a dog’s look.

_ You should tell her, _he said mournfully. His big eyes held her own.

“Tell her what?” 

_ You know exactly what. Stop denying it. _

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Krypto got up on his paws, pressing them against her stomach. When he looked away from her, Kara could’ve sworn he rolled his eyes at her. She was two seconds away from telling him to mind his attitude, before she bit down on her tongue and remembered that Krypto was a _ dog. _

So she pinched the bridge of her nose, took her phone back, answered a quick reply to Alex’s nagging texts, then opened Lena’s chat.

_ I’d love you here if you aren't busy, _she typed out, then sent before she could have any regrets.

Lena’s reply only took a minute. _ I’m on my way. I hope Streaky’s there. _

She didn’t know how to feel about that last bit.

Her doorbell rang after an episode rerun of a buddy cop show, and she threw off her blanket to answer it. In true dog fashion, Krypto started barking and jumping up and down, wagging his tail so fast that she could feel the wind coming from it. She was forever grateful that her landlord let her have pets. 

When she opened the door, Lena had her hair up in a tight bun, wearing a business suit and a handbag over her elbow. She lit up when she saw Kara, giving her a gentle hug as to not bruise her even further. Kara could already feel her scars fading with every word Lena spoke to her.

“You were doing so great. I watched it all in my office,” she praised. Krypto barked his interruption. She laughed and added, “And Krypto was just as good.”

Kara got out one word of her thanks, before she realized that Lena wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. She gasped melodramatically, rushing forward to find Streaky lying down on a sofa chair with a lazy paw dangling over the edge. 

"Oh, my darling. My baby. Are you okay?" she crooned, and Kara felt herself wince. Lena picked up Streaky in her arms, and he purred in response to her. “I saw you get whipped around like a rag doll. I got so worried about you! You’re getting a nice tall bowl of tuna, I promise. I’ll even hire a masseur to take care of you. Would you like that?”

“I’m okay too, thanks for asking,” Kara said sarcastically. Lena didn’t hear her, and she frowned.

Krypto bumped his head on her thigh. When she looked down, he was looking at her with a mirthful grin. _ What, are you jealous? _

“No, I’m not,” she whispered harshly.

“Did you say something, Kara?” Lena said, and she finally looked over to see her. 

Kara forced a smile on her lips. “No, no, I’m okay. I was just about to—” Lena was back to cooing over Streaky, bouncing her cat up and down, “— get Krypto some food. Okay. Wow.”

She tried not to take offense to the situation. In some way, it was endearing how close Lena got with her cat. She knew it was a wish Lena had for years— to get a companion she could keep around in order to liven up her lifeless apartment. And she was happy Lena had it, she really was, but the pit in her stomach told her a different story. 

Maybe it was because she hoped Lena would fill that loneliness with her. Or maybe it was something else entirely. She couldn’t be too sure.

Sucking on the inside of her cheek, Kara busied herself by checking her pantry. She pulled out four cans of pinto beans and ham for Krypto, and then another two for herself. She dropped them on the counter and got to work with her heat vision, doing her best to block out the noise of Lena purring over her “dearest little boy”. 

She tossed the cans to her side. Krypto ate each one with a mighty chomp, wagging his tail faster and faster. She ate her own as she did, sliding over her stool to ask Krypto to do some tricks. Super dogs not only could do barrel rolls in the air, but it was insanely fun to watch them chase their tails. 

Eventually, and surprisingly, her stomach was full. She let Krypto eat the cans for the sake of the environment (and his relentless appetite), and made some of Lena’s favorite tea. Now holding a tall mug of it, Kara pivoted to make her way to her best friend.

She made exactly seven steps closer to Lena before being halted by a muscular cat. 

“Um… excuse me,” she said dumbly, and made a step to the side to come around Streaky. He stepped to the side with her. He hissed. 

Lena chuckled on the couch. She threw a pillow over her lap and stretched her arm over the back to watch her. “Do you need help, Kara?” she asked in amusement. 

“Uh, no, I got it,” she said, forcing as much confidence in her voice as she could. Lena only laughed when she took a step forward and Streaky pounced and she yelped, stopping only an inch away from her precious foot. “What is your _ problem_?” she asked the cat, and then took a side step to the left. 

Streaky mimicked her movements with laser precision. 

She narrowed her eyes. He copied her. 

Behind her, there was a short bark to get her attention. Kara twisted her body to look at Krypto, who panted at her with his lazy tongue out to the side and an ear flopped over his face. He nodded at her. Then Kara turned back to Streaky, and her newfound energy coursed through her veins like an IV drip.

“Oh, it’s _ on,_” she declared, and the cat mewled in agreement. 

Lena’s tea balanced in one hand, Kara took a side step to the right and then faked him out by taking another one to the left. It worked, and the cat nearly slipped on his side before recovering to following Kara. She took exactly three steps closer to Lena before Streaky yelled viciously and jumped on her back, claws out with a menacing look in his eyes.

Yelling a battle cry of her own, Kara turned around and danced in circles, trying to catch the cat on her back. He only gripped on her back tighter, and although it only felt like a pinch, Kara had to set her jaw to keep from crying out. She nearly toppled off a vase, keeping it upright with a heel before dive-bombing to the ground to stop, drop, and roll Streaky off her back. 

It worked and his kitty claws unhooked from her back, and she turned around on her stomach to mock him with a grin and a _ “Hah!” _ with Lena’s tea remaining unspilled in her palm.

Shrieking like a stray cat in a fight, Streaky pounced directly for her eyes. 

She covered her face with her arm, blocking him out from the precious parts of her face. He scratched at her forearm for a long, drawn moment before Kara unsteadily got up, arm still over her face, and groped around wildly. 

Kara managed to fake her way out around him again, and watched as the cat took two seconds to realize she was out of his sight. With not a moment to spare, Kara bent down and swiped him by the scruff of the neck, and lifted him up in the air like a beheaded prize.

Streaky struggled for the longest time, mewling and swiping with his long claws. Kara held him out to her arm’s length, looking down at him with a frown.

He stopped struggling after a long pause, then laid limp in her hand. Grinning and sighing out a breath of relief, Kara put him down gently. Tentatively, Streaky regarded her for a long moment, staring her down with his narrowed green eyes. 

“Nothing’s gonna keep me away from her,” she said, and realized that she was actually panting, tired and exhausted from her little scuffle with Streaky. “Not even you.”

Maybe she was dead tired and imagining things, but the look Streaky gave her was something close to approval.

Mellow and subdued, Streaky blinked and turned his head. He pawed over to the sofa chair and took a nap on top.

Huffing and puffing out her chest in victory, Kara walked over to Lena with a fresh cup of tea. “Sorry about that,” she said with a smile, and gave Lena the steaming cup, “it… might have some cat hair in it.”

“We’ll see,” Lena replied, and thanked her with a gracious smile. In a split second, Lena reached over and planted a warm kiss on Kara’s cheek. “You’re my hero,” she teased, and Kara’s smile blossomed into a full-blown beam.

Kara sighed, sliding an arm over Lena’s shoulders. Lena dropped her head, snuggling so close and warmly to Kara that she almost burst into tears. Her day’s been the longest its ever been in months, and staying with Lena seemed to freeze time faster than her breath can over anything in the world. 

“I think my biggest win today was telling your cat to screw off,” she said honestly, and stuck out her tongue at Streaky’s sleeping form across from them. Lena laughed softly, and Kara could feel the laugh against her side. It made her feel warmer.

“It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?” Lena said to her. 

“Yeah.” _ But you make it all worth it. You always do. _

And then Lena jumped right into her day, and Kara clung onto every word like it was the cliff she was holding onto. Her meetings were drab and full of contradictions from her team, and progress on her newest alien technology to help the world was coming slowly, but steadily. Kara put her chin on top of Lena’s head. 

By the end of the day, they were cuddling on the couch, legs tangled and arms around each other and hands entwined for comfort. Lena snoozed on her chest, her breath tickling the side of Kara’s bicep. 

There was a quiet jingling noise of a collar as Krypto made his way over to them, a blanket in his mouth. He dropped it in Kara’s hand, and she discreetly tucked it around them to make sure Lena didn’t wake up cold. She thanked him with a scratch underneath the chin.

“Thanks, buddy,” she said quietly, and Krypto licked her hand. 

Kara can’t hold the entire world up by herself, but she felt as if she didn’t have to. She was already holding her world in her arms. And every star, comet, and matter in the galaxy could never compare to the warmth Lena was pressing against her heart. 

* * *

There were very few things Lena would drop everything for. She was, in theory, working on a cure for every ailment in existence— so anything that wasn’t as important as _ that _was to be dismissed by her assistant.

So when she got a call from Kara asking her to come over to her apartment for a girl’s night in (see also: a night _ alone, _between the two of them), Lena almost dropped her vial of scientific research to make way out of her door. 

It’s been exactly two weeks since she adopted Streaky, and two weeks and a day since Kara got to take care of Krypto. Their pets were almost becoming an extension of their day, a variable that’s always been there, and Lena was starting to see the appeal of becoming a cat lady.

She was at Kara’s door now, wearing a bland coat on top of the more comfortable clothes underneath. She had a small suitcase with her, and Kara always teased her about the fact she used such a thing for sleepovers instead of “something normal, you know like, a duffel bag”. Smoothing out the front of her coat, Lena reached over to knock twice on the door.

Listening closely, she could hear the sounds of Kara’s record player, playing Louis Armstrong’s voice that seemed to float around her. But if she craned her ears enough, she could also hear Kara’s voice, muffled but enough to make it out. 

“Krypto!” she said, and her voice was slightly harried. Lena leaned closer. “Don’t you _ dare._”

There was a beat of silence, and then a flurry of motion. There a bunch of thuds, then growling, and Lena couldn’t figure out if the growling was coming from Kara or Krypto.

In her confusion, she didn’t realize right away that her phone was buzzing in her pocket. She quickly took it out and checked the ID, and saw that it was Kara. 

Concerned now, she took the spare key Kara gave to her and slotted it in the door, pushing it open with her shoulder. She blinked at the sight in front of her, any questions she had dying in her throat. 

Kara had her hand along Krypton’s gums, her arm and legs swung around his chest to keep him from leaving. They both looked up at her when she entered, and the three gawked in silence. 

“Should I ask what happened?” she said, and looked between the two Supers with an arched eyebrow.

Kara and Krypto reacted quickly. They got off of each other, twin grins on their faces. Her phone stopped buzzing in her hand, and Lena nudged her suitcase closer to herself. “Lena, hey!” Kara chirped, and her voice was too high to be natural. She winced, and Krypto looked over at her with a twinkle in his eyes. 

“So…?” Lena asked again.

Kara pointed a finger at Krypto. In the same fashion, Krypto pointed his paw at her, as if expecting her to take it to shake his hand. She never did. “He ate my phone,” she said matter-of-factly.

Krypto hiccuped, then belched. A slobbering phone landed in between Kara’s legs. “Oh, ew,” she said, and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Lena laughed, coming in closer to her apartment with her suitcase lugging behind. She closed the door with her heel. “New question— why did he eat your phone?” she asked, trying not to laugh louder when Krypto only wagged his tail at her. 

“I don’t know, maybe he thinks I’m not feeding him enough?” Kara said in exasperation, and brought herself back up to her feet. She dusted off her pants, looking down at the shiny phone on the floor with a look between amazement and disgust. “He took my phone and _ unlocked _it, somehow, and then looked for your name to call you—”

“Why was he trying to call me?” Lena asked her incredulously. She put her suitcase next to the sofa, and Kara walked over to her kitchen to make them a bowl of nachos. 

Even with her back turned, Lena could see the flush rising up to Kara’s face. It turned her cheeks in a light tint of pink, like she went outside to run in the cold. “I, um…” she stammered, and turned around to look at Lena. She cleared her throat, putting her hands on her hips as a way to emit some sort of confidence. “I got worried when you wouldn’t answer my texts. So he probably thought it was a good idea to call you.”

“Sorry,” she apologized, and stripped herself of her coat to put on the back of the couch. She’ll put it away properly later. “I had to touch base with some of my clients.”

“How’d that go?” Kara asked genuinely, and shook a bag of nachos to put inside a bright orange bowl. A jar of salsa stood beside it. Lena fidgeted with the crate of vinyls to find a new song. “Were they better or worse than yesterday’s ‘I don’t believe in climate change’ contenders?”

Warmth spread through Lena’s chest. Kara was always asking about her work, no matter how many times Lena kept telling her that it was the same old. There was just something nice about getting to complain to her best friend about the newest stock drop, and getting actual advice and comfort in return. 

And if she had the privilege to see Kara make her a bowl of nachos and salsa in order to prepare themselves for a black and white movie for the rest of her life, Lena felt as if she’d never complain about her life ever again. 

She chose a record and popped it into the player, helping Kara with preparing the guacamole in the small kitchen. Around them, Streaky and Krypto popped in and out of the apartment window. They never really questioned where they went. Sometimes they’d see their pets fighting crime on TV, and sometimes they’d bring home a robotic arm that didn’t seem human. They learned to live with it.

Plus, as much as she loved Streaky with all her heart, seeing Kara put her hair up in a messy ponytail and sing loudly along to Ella Fitzgerald, scatting along to the flugelhorns of the song, was candy to her eyes and ears.

In a distant fantasy, Lena could imagine wrapping her arms around Kara’s waist as she sang and cut up some fruits for her, pressing soft kisses on the nape of her neck. It wasn’t healthy to want to kiss your best friend all the time, and wanting to shout to the world that you loved them with every inch of your being, but she couldn’t help it— not when Kara had the tendency to smile like a dog in a giant field, and certainly not when she only smiled like that for Lena.

She laughed quietly when Kara screamed out the lyrics to the next song, using the butt end of her wooden spoon as a mic and leaning in close to tell her imaginary audience, “This one goes out to Lena. She’s the gal that hooked me up to this place.” and striking a familiar Elvis Presley pose. 

Sometimes, when her heart was soaring and her brain could only think of _ Kara, Kara, Kara, _she’d hold Streaky close and dance him around her living room to the songs her best friend recommended to her that day. She’d greedily imagine that Kara was watching her, with the same love in her eyes she felt each time she watched Kara sing or dance, and she’d keep her eyes closed to live that secluded dream.

But right now, right in front of her, Kara was singing softer and kinder to the trumpets and rhythmic drums of her favorite Frankie Valli song, staring right at Lena with a gooey melt in her eyes she could only imagine partly in her dreams. 

She was right in front of Lena in an instant, offering her a hand to pick her up, her makeshift microphone still close to her lips. And Lena, so smitten and in love with the woman singing, _ “I love you baby, and if it’s quite alright, I need you baby…” _, let her pull her up to her feet to swing her around the cramped space of Kara’s apartment. 

She wasn’t a good dancer, by any means, but Kara seemed to swing her around with an ease that made laughter bubble constantly in her chest. They were pressed so close to each other and so invested in the little steps they took that made up their spontaneous dance that they never took notice of their furry companions waltzing from the window. 

By the end of the song, they were panting, though in the moment Lena never questioned why a Kryptonian would get tired from dancing fruitfully with a klutzy partner. All she could think about was Kara’s arms around her waist, and her hands pressing so affectionately on Kara’s warm cheeks. 

“Can I— can I tell you something?” Kara got out, and she swallowed thickly. 

Lena almost didn’t hear her. She was too focused on the silvery specks of Kara’s eyes. They were so bright, strands of brilliant gray and cobalt looking back into hers with a glare from the lights. Her pupils were much bigger than Lena remembered them to be, zeroed in on Lena’s face.

“Tell me what?” she said, and her own voice sounded far away, even to herself.

“Nevermind,” Kara said quickly, but her arms never left Lena’s. “Do you wanna get some guacamole? I feel like guacamole right now,” she babbled, and laughed to herself in an attempt to make humor of the situation. 

Before Lena could insist, Krypto caught her eye. He was standing right behind Kara, his tail wagging in a blur behind him and his ears pointed upwards in attention. Streaky laid lazily on the countertop, but he wasn’t napping as usual. He was watching her.

He was holding something in his mouth, a standard sized piece of paper. The drawing wasn’t even close to being the best, but the jagged lines and colors were enough to distinguish what Krypto was trying to communicate. There was a red-colored woman holding hands with a blue-colored woman, and there was a pain-stakingly drawn heart right above them.

“Kara.” She felt as if someone reached down and took the breath out of her lungs. 

Kara squinted at her for a second, then turned behind her to see what she was staring at. She was rendered just as speechless as Lena, her arms falling back away from her waist like an idle doll. Lena almost wanted to cry out.

Then Kara started stammering. “Krypto!” she squeaked, and her voice was decibels higher than any song she was singing a minute ago. “You don’t— that’s not a nice thing to do, you’re— throw that away!”

Krypto only held it up higher, jumping up and down slightly to make a point in his drawing.

When Kara took a step forward, her jaw dropped and her tongue tied with seven different words, Krypto sped away, leaving the drawing on the ground. Streaky watched him leave, then blinked slowly at the pair before turning his head away from them to sleep. 

“Lena, I’m so sorry, Clark told me he was better than that,” Kara said, her words coming out rushed. “I’m sorry if he made you uncomfortable. He sniffs butts but I promise he’s not an actual pervert. If you wanna leave, or if you want to— to scold him or anything, I can go do that, I—”

“It’s fine,” Lena told her. She reached out and held her wrist, rubbing the pad of her thumb over the bone. Kara looked down, then back up at her with soulful eyes that could only be comparable to a puppy. “It’s fine, I promise. But… I think…”

“You think?” Kara prodded, and her wavering voice gave way to a slimmer of hope.

“He must’ve did it for something,” Lena said simply. She ran her thumb over Kara’s wrist again. The skin underneath was welcoming. When she glanced down for the shortest second, she found something that seemed much more inviting and soft. 

“You think so?” she said hesitantly, and the sudden low drop of her voice sent a shiver through her body. Hands were back on Lena’s waist, but much more tentatively. As if she was scared that Lena would pull back at any moment. Her hands were back up to Kara’s cheeks— and they were warmer, her jaw ticking underneath cool fingers. 

“You should stop me,” she said simply.

“If you really think I’m going to stop you, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Kara told her sincerely, and it was that little joke that gave her a spur of confidence.

She rushed forward and kissed Kara full on the mouth, the front of her teeth clashing briefly with Kara’s before they settled much nicer against each other. Their lips fitted together like the zippers of a jacket, and they pressed together with a fervor of years of burnt out candles. Kara’s hands pressed against her waist, nudging her backwards. 

They kept walking slowly until they found the couch, and with a little squeak, Kara grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down to it. She was straddling Kara’s waist now, no longer by accident from the tragic calamity of last week, her forearms pressed on the back of the sofa to kiss Kara with all her might.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours, hands exploring and lips on lips and collarbones and shoulders and necks, and Lena wouldn’t have it any other way.

When they finally separated, breaths fanning each other’s faces, Lena pecked a kiss on her lips one more time. “Should we—” she panted, and Kara pecked her right back, “Should we check on Krypto? Or Streaky, he gets really fussy if I— if I don’t— _ shit._” She gave in to the avalanche going on in her head, and grabbed Kara by the throat to kiss her again. 

“What’s wrong, cat’s got your tongue?” Kara teased her, and let Lena knock her head backwards to kiss her at a more compromising angle. “If you wanna bring the cat out of the bag, I—”

“Stop.” Lena groaned and put her forehead against Kara’s neck. When Kara laughed, she could feel it against her chest. “Stop talking. Keep kissing me.”

The smile Kara gave her was meant to be teasing, but it ended up soft and gooey on her lips. “Woof.”

* * *

There was a knock on the door mere seconds after Kara finished up cutting baby carrots. Neither Krypto nor Kara were into carrots, or vegetables for that matter, so it wasn’t hard to guess what possessed her to make them on a sleepless weekend night.

When she opened the door, Kara exclaimed and hugged her girlfriend tightly, pecking her on the lips and chivalrously taking her bag to bring it inside. 

“Did you make us carrots for tonight?” Lena asked her, gazing over to the counter full of vegetables and salad. She gaped and turned to look at Kara, who looked back at her with a puffed out chest. “And salad? Aren’t I the luckiest woman in the world?”

“Only the best for you,” Kara said, and her goofy grin made Krypto want to roll his eyes. He crossed his paws and laid down his head on them, watching the pair banter over the perfect salad combinations. 

They sat down on the couch and cuddled closely, a remote in Kara’s hand to listen to Lena’s instructions of picking out the perfect crime drama to binge. Streaky paced on the couch with them, before finding a perfect spot on the arm rest to take a nap. Lena stroked her hand over his body.

After a couple minutes of watching the two argue over what to watch, he got bored. He couldn’t hear any commotion outside with his super hearing, and the smell of fresh steak on a grill wasn’t present either. He was _ bored. _

He got up and rummaged in the closet, nearly barking in excitement when he found his favorite leash. He grabbed it with his mouth and walked out with a bounce in his step, making his way to Kara for an impromptu walk in the park. 

A giggle stopped him in his tracks. He watched closely as Kara slid a sneaky hand underneath Lena’s sweater, and Lena swatted it away with a choked laugh. Kara, finding an entrance to her devious plan, stuck two hands over her girlfriend’s abdomen to make her laugh again. This time, Lena actually squealed, crying out and begging her Kryptonian girlfriend for mercy by tapping on her forearms as she worked quickly over Lena’s stomach. 

Krypto dropped his leash on the ground. Breathing out steadily through his nostrils, he ducked his head and went back to lie down on the rug. Paws crossed and tail swishing in the air rhythmically, Krypto just watched. 

His boy, Kal, was going to get him in two days. He’d be home in Metropolis and he’d get to slobber the face of his boy as much as he want again. He was sad to see his girl go too, but a victory was a victory. 

He hoped by the end of his time with Kara, he would find a way to leave her with something bigger than he came here with. Like maybe a shiny new red ball, because that always cheered him up. Or a gigantic robot arm she could add to her collection and bury in the backyard. 

But it was clear the moment he landed in National City that it took more than material things and treats to cheer his girl up. 

The girl he knew in Krypton was bright and loving. It wasn’t that Kara wasn’t radiant now— in fact, there was an aura to her that he could sniff out, one that smelled like fresh cookies and soot from a recent battle of defending her city. But now, she was almost… wistful. Like a widow that’s moved on from her widower, but still missed him from time to time.

Krypto knew why. He felt the pain sometimes too, and occasionally his boy would wake up to patrol around the city to stop the bleeding in his heart. But Kara knew Krypton as something more than a planet she could never have the opportunity to come back to— it was her home, and everything that she knew.

Nothing could ever replace that home Krypton made for her. 

But Lena Luthor, a woman with a brilliant mind and an act that she knew to play, was a person that could build something new with her. Plank by plank, with new renovations, and a floor plan that could rival a lucrative architect. Maybe Lena could even build him a nice dog house of his own. 

Kara let go of Lena to hold her by the face instead. Panting and scolding her for torturing her, Lena looked back at Kara with a reflection of the love Kara was giving to her. 

They kissed, much softer and more familiar than it was a couple of days ago. When Kara pressed her forehead against Lena’s, mumbling sweet words that were only ever meant for the girl she was holding in between her hands, Krypto flicked his ear. 

He could go home, because Kara would be okay. If the genuine smiles and bubbling laughter she shared with Lena was an indication of anything, it was that she was going to be _ more _than okay. She was going to be happy, and she’ll stay happy, because they looked at each other with the kind of love Krypto only ever experienced with a crisp tennis ball thrown a thousand yards away for him to get. 

When he looked over at Streaky, he could see the cat looking at his girl and her girlfriend with an adoring look. They locked eyes, a mutual understanding between each other without having to speak. 

He couldn’t wait to see his boy and tell him that his girl was finally, most unconditionally happy. Krypto was looking forward to the treats he’d get, but really, seeing Kara beam like she always did on Krypton was a bigger reward than any giant bone Clark Kent could give him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I added [that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcJm1pOswfM) song in the end because my friends and I were drunkenly singing it to each other at a karaoke bar and what's a more gay way than to sing to your lover amirite? 
> 
> My [Tumblr](https://cosmiccaptain.tumblr.com/) (@cosmiccaptain) | My [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cosmicpandas?s=17) (@cosmicpandas)!


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